I was not prepared to be a father. It doesn’t hit you in the head like a train, as they show in the movies. It’s a slow process, one that takes time. For me, it was 2 months. Here’s what happened.

A primer to Indian culture before I continue. Indian culture stipulates that the future mother be “dropped off” at her home on the seventh month of pregnancy. After childbirth, she will remain there for 3 more months under the care of her mother.

My wife opted to remain with me till childbirth. She decided it was better to be with her mother after. Her judgment turned out to be on point, as usual. She did need time to get adjusted to the new sleeping pattern.

I should rephrase that.

D, my wife, required time to get adjusted to the lack of sleep. And my daughter wasn’t helping either. She used to cry her throats out, in her signature high-pitched screech. I used to go daily to D’s home and stayed with them till night. Since D’s mom was struggling with cancer, D had a maid who helped her through the process. Space limitations at her home meant that I returned back and slept at my place.

Even though I played with my daughter and cuddled with her most of the time, I didn’t feel like a father, you know. I thought that to be a father was a rite of passage. Gone were the hard-partying days of old and here was this mature man born along with his child.

Nope, it doesn’t work that way.

I realized that I lacked a paternal affection for this new creature that we had brought into this world. I didn’t know what to do about it. I tried to force myself into doing it, but that reinforced the previous sentence. So, I decided to do what everyone else does when they face a problem they don’t quite understand.

I ignored it.

And I went along with my daily routine. My home — D’s home — play with child — listen to D’s complaints about lack of sleep — Sleep a bit — Play with child again — Kiss and go back home.

D wanted to stay with me before I went back to my work location. So, instead of the mandatory 3 months, she came back to our home after a month. Now, I too shared the sleeplessness. D — well-versed now — had a bit of fun watching me struggle. I didn’t complain about it. After all, it was our combined decision to have a child in the first place. A slight change to the routine aside, everything else stayed the same.

This went for another month. And the day arrived when I had to rejoin work, after my paternal leave. That was when things became interesting.
I felt sad. I did not want to leave this cute little creature at my home. I loved her smile, I loved her screech. But more than that, I loved her presence. Those small laughs and unsuccessful attempts to speak. All the little things flooded and came back. And I didn’t want to leave. I loved them both more than I imagined. But I did leave. Work is pay and I needed money.

On the flight back to work, I understood something. Becoming a father wasn’t a rite of passage or a realization. It is a slow process that grows on you. Something so imperceptible, that you don’t even realize you are changing. Like an addiction, but the good kind. You “become” a father the same way you became an addict.

Incremental doses of love, over a significant duration of time.

So, whoever you are, man or woman, if you ever feel/have felt the same way I did, remember it’s okay and not your fault. Do not be hard on yourself.
It takes time, patience, and most important — a lot of unconditional love.

Hope this helps.

How I stopped worrying and learned fatherhood was originally published in The Coffeelicious on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Every time there is an ice-breaking session at work, most people are expected to share a bit about their background, experience and hobbies. Back in 2011, when I started working, the answers used to be like listening to music, playing/watching sports, or maybe working out.

Today, the answer is largely dominated by travel & OTT streaming. The odd person says yoga or cooking, making the rest of us gape in awe. You can imagine why, we cannot even have a meal without streaming. The standards for this answer have dropped a lot over the years. They often lead to discussions on what shows and movies are worth watching.

I’m no different; I stream and binge on shows as much as anyone, but during these ice breaker sessions when it’s my turn, I’ve never said a word about OTT. In that moment, I feel an urge to have an impressive answer. Not just to impress those on the call, but myself too. It’s like there’s another imaginary version of me standing there in my subconscious. Let’s call him HPK: high potential Kishore.

HPK is what I imagine I would be like if I pursued all my hobbies relentlessly without a pause. He has published books, plays piano beautifully and effortlessly, has a flat belly, reads a few pages everyday, takes breathtaking pictures, keeps in touch with all his friends. You get the picture.

Where is RK (Real Kishore) though?RK has no idea who this guy is. This HPK guy sounds cool he thinks, and it would be good to know such a person.

But when someone asks me what are my hobbies, I answer like I am HPK. I tell people I have a blog, and that I like watching football. Which probably makes me a hypocrite, because a hobby is not something you do once in a year for a few minutes. The really sad part is though this impresses nobody — neither myself or anyone else on the call. Who the hell has got the time attention span to read a blog nowadays?

We all yearn to be better and live up to our potential, but I feel like I just enjoy the thought of this potential, that’s all. After nearly two years of not pursuing any of these yearnings, the thought of this person feels like a delusion now.

I am not feeling particularly sad as I say this. It is more of a shock. The gaping chasm between RK & HPK cannot keep growing forever, and I think it’s time to accept that. Thinking of this fictional superhero self is not comforting, or adding any value to my life. If anything, it hampers the quality of my free time.

I brought my laptop and a book to a cafe. I kid you not, as I was reading the book, I was feeling the teensiest bit guilty, thinking, “I should be writing right now. I won’t get time like this again.” It’s the same experience when I’m playing FIFA on my playstation, or sometimes even while watching football. It’s like my brain is rating each activity as I do it, comparing it to what HPK would probably do.

That said, I don’t think it is wrong to have an idea of who you want to be. But looking back at the last few years, watching one rapid change after another unfold, the concept of who ‘you’ are needs to constantly evolve as well. It doesn’t seem fair to compare my lifestyle today with that of five years ago. Back then, I thought people who spoke about career were idiots, that my career is going to suck, and hobbies are the only hope for me to have a good life.

The last 4 years that have unfolded have been the exact opposite; how I feel about work has become a lot more positive, and hobbies have faded away to non-existence. Back then, I thought people who discussed personal finance were just greedy, and only I had noble goals. Today I am fascinated by reading up on how to invest and how to save tax. Not only do I think it’s important, but I actually enjoy it.

Life rarely pans out to be what you expect. Just because a few people complimented me on my writing or singing or piano a long time back doesn’t mean I should ‘produce’ something consistently. Sure, I can still pursue any of them whenever I feel like, but until I do, there’s no point in feeling guilty with however I choose to spend my time. There’s no point in morosely telling everyone or myself about all the unfulfilled potential, pretending to be a failed artist whose life is falling apart.

And whenever I do pursue these hobbies, it doesn’t help to think about that potential. Rather than imagining an audience cheering me on to climb a mountain, I would prefer backpacking by myself, going wherever the roads take me, and ignore the ghosts of lost potential.

The Hypocrisy of My Hobbies was originally published in The Coffeelicious on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This box of wine was my undoing.

During the pandemic, I discovered this organic boxed wine that didn’t taste like ass. And it was cheap. Soon, I had a mini keg of “healthy” wine in my fridge. The mere hit of a button would fill my oversized wine glass in mere seconds. The box lasted 4x longer than a bottle and no clank-clank on recycling day. Perfect.

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As the years passed, I realized my overall intake had increased. At-home drinking became the norm (why socialize when you have all you need at home?). I love cooking so of course, wine just seemed part of the pretty domestic picture I created for myself.

Then I got Covid last November. I was so sick, I could barely eat let alone drink booze. A week went by when I realized:

This is the first week I haven’t had alcohol in years. Wow.

So I rolled with it and remained sober. This is what some call spontaneous sobriety. There was no “hitting a bottom.” No DUIs. No forced rehab or awkward interventions. Since I hadn’t planned it, I had no idea what to do next.

So I did what any red-blooded American does when unsure: I Googled “now what accidental sobriety?”

Apparently, one needs a community for support for continued success. So I found an online group of women (that don’t subscribe to AA philosophy — more on this later) who simply realize that drinking isn’t working for them anymore.

The first Zoom meeting provided me quiet relief: many women like me — working professionals who live relatively normal lives. They just had a secret that was creeping into consciousness: over-drinking.

With each passing day, I learned more about gray area drinking.

Alcohol is addictive.

Alcohol is addictive. That’s just a fact. And when you’ve been drinking for decades, you slowly (or quickly) become addicted to it. No one is immune.

Yet we live in a world that conveniently distances itself from this very obvious fact. We think it’s a character flaw when people get hooked on alcohol. A decent and measured person can drink moderately, right? And if you can’t moderate, well…what’s wrong with you?

This method of blaming the person and not the substance has a long marketing history, detailed substantially in Holly Whitaker’s groundbreaking book, Quit Like a Woman.

“Alcohol is the only drug in the world where, when you stop taking it, you are seen as having a disease.”

The myth of moderation

No one thinks you can moderate cigarette smoking or cocaine. There is no “safe” amount. Yet booze is so socially acceptable, we think moderate intake is just fine. And at first, it is! Listen, some of the best times in my life involved booze. I don’t regret that nor do I feel ashamed.

Pictured below, I’m drunk as hell, doing an at-home photo shoot with my friend Amber. We laughed hard, drank harder and I probably smoked a cigarette or two to top of the night. Would I take this night back? Hell no.

I might take this next image back though. Looking pretty drunky here.

I knew early on in my abstinence: moderation would not be an option.

I always finished my drink before others. The idea of “just one” seemed like a cruel tease. Frankly, I’d rather not drink at all than suffer the internal wrath of “one drink” frustration. I, like many others, lost the chance to moderate. The addiction has taken a foothold and it does the deciding for you.

Aging didn’t help. As I got older, even when I did drink “moderately,” I still felt like shit the next day. Two glasses of wine were easily enough to disrupt my sleep and cause irritation and brain fog the next day. The recovery time took longer, sometimes as many as two days.

Drinking and the middle-aged female body

Experiencing menopause (or perimenopause) is a hormonal rollercoaster ride akin to puberty. You experience a range of changes as hormone levels drop in your body. Add to that a toxic world that continually disrupts our endocrine system. Booze only exacerbates this complicated hormonal disruption, which I could no longer afford.

Case in point: my breasts often ached during perimenopause. Doctors told me it’s common cystic activity that happens during menopause. But it always scared me. A particular location on my breast hurt the worst — an incision spot where I had a minor biopsy years ago. Fear would overwhelm me when that spot began to ache again. Was it cancer?

Since I stopped drinking, the breast pain has dropped considerably, if not completely. The overall inflammation from booze was now gone. No doctor would confirm my hypothesis that alcohol cessation helped heal my breasts. Hell, doctors have suggested drinking was good for me. They are often part of the brainwashed masses that believe the “anything in moderation” myth.

It’s not just inflammation; many middle-aged women have autoimmune disorders. I have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, a chronic thyroid issue. My energy levels can wane to dangerous levels at times. I can wake up feeling completely run-down, even without any booze in my system. It can be safely said: alcohol certainly isn’t helping me manage this disorder.

The poor misunderstood liver

Nobody sends you a memo when your liver stops functioning as well as it used to. Sure, I got normal blood results and assumed that my liver was “still going strong.”

But blood tests are notoriously unreliable when it comes to liver damage. In fact, liver function tests can be normal at multiple stages of liver disease. In short, you often don’t know you have serious damage until it’s past the point of return.

Here’s one irrefutable fact: drinking alcohol damages the liver. Each time your liver filters alcohol, some liver cells die.

The liver literally begins to stiffen with continued alcohol use, making it less able to do its critical job in today’s dirty world: cleaning toxins out of your body. This means more hormone disruption, sugar deregulation and a multitude of other illnesses that accompany a poorly functioning liver.

Learning to be a sober social being again

Like many, booze had been my go-to social lubricant. I’m not shy but I’m not a raging extrovert. So booze became a crutch for me socially. It helped me enjoy conversations that would otherwise bore me. It helped me embrace social situations that didn’t enliven me.

Since my sobriety, I have had to rediscover who I am without booze. I won’t lie: it’s a bit weird and wobbly, a fawn finding her footing.

But I have also come to realize: if a social situation needs booze to make it better, then HELLO, I SHOULDN’T BE IN THAT SOCIAL SITUATION. This, of course, leads to many nights at home with White Cat, watching Netflix and wondering what’s next for this sober woman in her 50s.

Occasionally, I have a successful night where I have fun without booze. And like a teeny seed, I hope it grows. After all, I started life sober, right? I didn’t need booze to have fun in my childhood. We just had fun, naturally and organically. I only hope I can still recover her.

Sobriety and the re-emergence of pain and anxiety

Whether consciously or not, most of us use booze to suppress anxiety and pain.

It’s almost comically simple but when you quit drinking, anxiety and psychic pain re-emerge, often with a vengeance.

In the last few months, I’ve cried about:

• The loss of my mom and dad decades ago.
• The loss of my grandparents decades ago.
• A multitude of pets I miss.
• Friends who are no longer friends.
• An old sweater I loved that I accidentally ripped.
• Trash by the side of the road.
• A song that reminded me of 4th grade.
• The depressing threadbare carpet of my childhood home.
• The kind face of my grade school nurse.

The grief surged out of me, convulsively at times. When you stop drinking, it’s as if your brain has been refreshed (it has been). It works better than before. This isn’t always good but necessary.

One could argue: who the hell would want that? Well, I would. It’s there anyway, dictating my life in a myriad of ways. I’d rather release it, not store it, thank you.

And it’s not just grief. If you’re newly sober, expect a surge of anxiety (since booze allayed it). This has been the hardest part for me. Anxiety can feel so real, so pervasive, that you almost don’t realize you are under its spell. A grocery store visit suddenly felt as overwhelming as visiting a crowded stadium event. An unexpected bill in the mail meant financial doom.

My sober Zoom friends remind me of the importance of exercise, even a walk, when the anxiety surges. Or deep breathing. Or running on a cold and empty beach in my granny panties and old sports bra as evident below:

AA is not the only game in town.

Like many, I assumed that when you quit drinking, you are an alcoholic. Start searching your area for an AA meeting.

I don’t think I am an alcoholic, frankly. Nor do millions of others like me. Truthfully, there’s no need to define yourself at all these days. Simply wanting to quit is enough.

Go on Instagram and search “sober curious” and you’ll find hundreds of thousands of posts dedicated to people who continue to drink but are examing this sneaky habit out in the open. They’re not alcoholics but sober curious. They’re not waiting to “bottom out.” How intelligent, right? It’s a new age.

You can go to virtual meetings that have nothing to do with AA. Or you could attend an AA meeting in LA even though you live in Philadelphia (if local anonymity matters to you).

Not ready for any of those steps? Create your own sobriety path with the help of TED talks and YouTube videos or read some of the best in “quit lit” (as it’s called) in the privacy of your home. Journal, meditate, go to therapy, fast, cleanse — it’s your choice these days.

Alcoholics Anonymous is a questionable model with some benefits and some serious drawbacks, especially for women. It is a largely white male-centric philosophy. As author and sobriety, expert Holly Whitaker points out:

The truth is, A.A. may be the foundation of global recovery, but it wasn’t made with everyone in mind. It’s a framework created in the 1930s by upper-middle-class white Protestant men to help people like them overcome addiction. Its founders believed the root of alcoholism was a mammoth ego resulting from an entitled sense of unquestioned authority.

She believes we women don’t need to tamp down our “mammoth” egos. One could argue it’s our shrunken, deflated egos at the root of their addiction in the first place.

Feeding the hole.

Without booze, you are left with a hole. And that hole is hungry. Literally. I craved sugar during the first few months as if my life relied on it.

A friend brought me over a bevy of baked goods for my birthday a few months ago. For most people, this multitude of sweets would have lasted a week. I ate everything within one day.

Frankly, I’ve always been like that. I eat quickly, I drink quickly and I generally keep sweets out of the house because I don’t just eat them, I inhale them.

What is this about? Fuck if I know but from what I’m learning, some people crave that dopamine hit wherever they can get it. If I can’t get it from booze, I will turn to food, more specifically sugar. The sugar cravings have waned a bit but not enough for my liking. Right now, I’m just allowing it to be.

The L Word

Many studies have supported the fact that loneliness is often at the root of addiction.

“The opposite of addiction is connection.”

No surprise there. But what is one to do? Wave a wand and have a supportive, loving community magically appear? As a single, middle-aged female, being alone is often the norm. Am I always feeling lonely? No. I wish I was feeling lonely more often. That might propel me to do more socially.

This Instagram meme made me chuckle but also scared me a little.

Is this me? When I adopted my beautiful White Cat, one of my friends (at the time) made a joke about me becoming a “cat lady” within days of ownership. It hurt me and pissed me off. I have a loving companion by my side for the first time in years, and now I’m supposed to be ashamed of it, lambasted for it. What women must endure.

Here’s my version:

The imperfect path of recovery.

I still smoke pot (called California sober) occasionally. I have an unhealthy attachment to coffee. I take Kratom daily (an herbal substance that can produce opioid and stimulant-like effects) to help with my crippling fatigue.

Technically, that’s not sober! I could be on a slew of doctor-prescribed medications and that would be acceptable to most. But not for me.

So it’s been imperfect, this whole process. A lot of what is purported to happen when you quit drinking didn’t happen to me.

What didn’t happen when I stopped drinking:

• I didn’t sleep better.
• My hair didn’t become lustrous.
• My complexion didn’t improve.
• I didn’t lose weight.
• I don’t feel like taking on the world.
• I don’t feel wildly positive and elated about sobriety like so many others on Instagram.

What did happen when I stopped drinking:

• I became more organized.
• My memory and recall improved.
• I crossed off more things on my weekly to-do list.
• I began to speak more cogently, saying exactly what I thought.
• I got in touch with old pain and released some of it.
• I sought therapy and use it to get old shit out of me
• I feel cleaner (for lack of a better word) and lighter overall.
• I started meditating again, this time more seriously than before, even buying my first meditation pillow.

So that’s my highly imperfect path. I hope you find yours. If you’re unsure as to whether you have a drinking problem, quit for a week. If you can’t do that, well…you probably have your answer.

But if you decide to go sober, don’t do it for the lustrous hair or the deep sleep. Don’t do it for weight loss or a more sunny outlook on life. Because that may or may not come. The whole process is kind of a rude awakening…but it’s still an awakening. There’s a rightness to it that can’t be denied. Nobody regrets getting sober, after all.

And that’s what I lean into when all the superficial benefits fall through.

The Rocky and Imperfect Road of Midlife Sobriety was originally published in The Coffeelicious on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I step into the elevator on the ground floor of my apartment building. There’s a bohemian-looking guy huddled in the back corner. He’d made himself comfortable for the ride. I press the button labeled “15”. No other buttons are lit.

I’m intrigued. I do a “sup” nod to break the ice. He nods back calmly. That made me feel welcomed in his temporary home.

“Long day?” I ask, the tone underlying the real question — how long have you been here?

He nodded, then glanced at the current floor screen: 5… 6…

I got a little more direct. “You going up, or?”

“Always.” he answered, obviously philosophical. Clearly this was a profound man, rebelling against life’s setbacks.

8…

“What will you do when you get to the top?” I challenged him.

He looked down, then straight at me. “I’ll just have to start from the bottom, again.”

I frowned, mouth ajar, shocked. Perhaps this guy was a thousand years old. Perhaps he’s intimately familiar with the cycles of creation and destruction of the universe.

11…

“The bottom provides new opportunities, doesn’t it?” My feeble attempt to match this dude’s wisdom.

“Not if you’re not willing to walk into the elevator to ride up again.” he declared confidently. At this moment, I decided this dude was the second coming of Jesus.

“I want to ride up, too!” I replied quickly, a little too excited.

“To the top?” he asked, smiling.

“The very top!” I replied enthusiastically.

“You can get there, my fellow rider. For fifty bucks. A special price for those who are ready to ride high.” He revealed a small plastic bag from his hoodie. White powder.

The elevator stopped, the number 15 shinning on the black screen above the floor buttons. A “ding” celebrated the opening of the doors. The guy still smiling, his arm extended towards me, holding the little transparent baggy.

I stepped out of the elevator, angry. In a fit, I turned and yelled, “Dammit Jesus!”

The elevator doors started to close. He slipped the baggy back into his hoodie, smiling. He cozied up on the corner, prepared to start from the bottom, again.

A brief conversation with the guy in the elevator was originally published in The Coffeelicious on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

On a hot July afternoon in 2019, my 9 year-old daughter and I walked the grand halls of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, marveling at the expansive collection that mandated a tea & scones break and comfortable walking shoes to be enjoyed fully. We had already been to the Tower of London museum a couple of days ago and rode the moving walkway to catch a brief glimpse of the “Koh-i-Noor” — the diamond with a turbulent history that once lived in Sikh ruler Ranjit Singh’s peacock throne. We had paid 30 pounds per person for a minute and a half with the legendary, supposedly-cursed stone that the British acquired from Duleep Singh — the young boy king immortalized forever as the one who caved into colonial pressure at the tender age of 10. We oohed and ahhed at its magnificence, laughed at some Beefeater jokes, and walked out into a perfectly gorgeous British afternoon to enjoy a Pimms cup. The colonial past was encountered, acknowledged, and quickly forgotten as we continued to enjoy all things quintessentially British. After all, we along with thousands of other Indian fans were in England to watch the Indian team play the Cricket world cup — a sport that came to us through the colonial legacy and then traversed it to become truly ours.

As we reached the South Asian collection I was instantly drawn to Tipu Sultan’s possessions. The notoriously brave and stubborn king of Mysore refused to bow down to the British and died in the 4th Anglo-Mysore war protecting his kingdom. We saw it all: his intricate silken robes and slippers, his sword that he refused to surrender, his portrait that he probably commissioned to immortalize his good side. We finally made it to the V&A Museum’s pride & joy — Tipu’s wooden tiger. It is an eighteenth-century mechanical toy created for Tipu, who was also known as the Tiger of Mysore. The carved and painted wood casing represents a tiger savaging a near-life-size European man. Mechanisms inside the tiger and man’s bodies make one hand of the man move, emit a wailing sound from his mouth, and grunt from the tiger. One look at the tiger mauling the European man is enough to understand the extent of Tipu’s hatred for the British East India Company.

As I turned to my daughter to convey the power dynamic behind this fascinating display, words jammed up in my tightening throat and my eyes prickled with unexpected moisture. Why was I choking up? Was it anger at seeing the artifacts that rightly belonged to the country of my birth, being touted as prized possessions of the British? Was I feeling the shame of the colonial hangover? Was it sorrow for Tipu’s pride, that had fully & finally been subdued and put up on display behind thick glass at a British museum? Whatever that feeling was, I knew the answer wasn’t linear and one-layered.

When I heard about Queen Elizabeth’s passing. some of those uncomfortable feelings returned. The London Bridge was down. An era had ended. How was I supposed to feel? Saddened? Relieved? Indifferent? Is there a way to appreciate her momentous 70-year reign without minimizing the generational trauma caused by the hundreds of years of imperial domination? Is there a way to acknowledge any nostalgic attachment one may feel to a symbol of British Royalty without giving up an ounce of one’s hard-earned liberty? Is a person's humanity ever really separable from the establishment they lead? I suspect there are no simple answers.

But I do know that even as we carry the burdens of our past, we have the agency to make better choices in the present. And even if it seems nearly impossible, we must do all we can to forgive each other and find a way to move forward past the shared trauma.

Perhaps it’s time to appreciate that the Queen who represented hundreds of years of blood-tainted history also looked ahead and strove for peace. Today, Indians own a majority of the real estate in London. The mayor of London is a Muslim man with South Asian roots. This week, Rishi Sunak, a man of Indian origin, came close to becoming the Prime Minister of the U.K. Hope rises and whispers in my ears that old wounds may heal. Life may come full circle. God save All of Us!

The Queen and the hope of healing was originally published in The Coffeelicious on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There’s so much talk about leading a balanced life — why it’s important, what it looks like, how to get it. But a balanced life isn’t a castle in the sky. It has to have something underneath, something that powers it.

There are many ways to describe this foundation. Some of them are complicated. Here’s one that’s simple:

Love. Work. Play. Rest.

Love nourishes your soul

According to Agni Yoga, “Love can create universes.” And what can be truer than this? Love expands who you are. It connects and sustains you. It does things you don’t have words for.

Loving another person is what we desire and strive for, but if you think there’s no other kind, you’re missing out. You can love anything you give yourself to and get back something good. You can love your dog Buster, your backyard rose garden, your passion for helping foster children — any thing of beauty, anything that deserves your devotion.

Work is for survival and direction

You may rail against the work you have to do stay alive, but life without work leaves you adrift and without purpose. Could you visit a theme park all day, every day? Tour the world for the rest of your life? It’s been said that work is the only thing you can do eight hours a day, five days a week. Maybe that’s a good thing.

Play connects you to the lightness of being

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” according to an old adage. Play ignites immediate joy and light. It cleanses the pallet of the mind and provides relief from the heaviness of daily life. Aren’t you enraptured watching a child lost in play? In play, you can find your way back to such joy.

Rest restores both body and mind

You can’t live intensely all the time. Your body needs rest as much as it needs food. Your mind needs to digest what has happened and refresh itself for what comes next. As Shakespeare put it, “Sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care.”

A balanced life is not that hard, really.

Love. Work. Play. Rest.

The 4 Cornerstones of a Balanced Life was originally published in The Coffeelicious on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I lead a pretty isolated life. (It’s my fault, but that’s another story.)

I had just come back from a Costco run. I was tired. I just wanted to unpack the trunk full of groceries, go inside, and lie on the couch. It didn’t help that the truck in the garage made it hard to put things on our storage shelves.

I was carrying an open bag of apples when I saw the day’s postal carrier bringing the mail. A thought just came into my head: he’s got to do this for eight hours.

With barely a thought, I said, “Excuse me, I just got these. Would you like an apple?”

I think he emerged from an drone-like state and said, “Why, yes. Yes I would.”

I held out the bag and let him pick.

I saw him tuck it into his mailbag.

Suddenly, I felt good. I was surprised. It felt good.

“Thanks, man.”

I was still unpacking groceries when he appeared again, on his way back to his truck. “Thanks again. Have a good day,” and I could tell that it wasn’t just a rote politeness. I felt good again, and I smiled (something I don’t do often).

It was a moment of grace, genuine, totally unrelated to having an iPhone in my hand. (Moments of grace never involve iPhones.)

You could say it was a good deed, and it was. But that’s beside the point; it was a moment of human connection.

I let a car go in front of me, and I wave when someone does the same for me.

I ask the cashier how busy her day is.

Often, I will never see that person again. Sometimes the gesture isn’t appreciated. None of that matters.

Regardless of their experience of the moment, I have done my part. I have reached out. I have made the world, even if only a bit, a better place.

And I am less alone.

I gave the man an apple. Then here’s what happened. was originally published in The Coffeelicious on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I recently started a small ritual with my boyfriend where before we go to sleep, we list out three things that we are grateful for. Those three things need to be specific to that day or week, and can’t be generic things like “I’m grateful for my health” but should be more like, “I’m grateful to have gotten everything on my to-do list done” or “I’m grateful that I came home early from work and got to spend time with the dogs today”. We all know the statistics behind people who are more thankful and grateful, and how much more positive and optimistic they are. I figured that since I’m not a very optimistic person, I could trick my way into optimism with this small ritual.

When it comes to things like being positive, grateful and happy; all you have to do is scroll through Instagram to feel like everything you’ve ever said is a big fat cliché. No matter where you look you will find cheesy captions talking about how an Instagram model overcame a minor struggle to get to where she is today, or someone tooting his own horn about an achievement he most definitely did not get to all by himself. I think it’s great to share your success stories and happiness with the world, but when did it become so trendy to do so?

I was with a friend recently and we were doing a small meditation. The more you do it, the easier it gets and since I was meditating after quite a while, I expected my brain to be bombarded with things I was worried about, emails I wanted to write and to-do list reminders; but I found that I was surprisingly silent. When we chatted about this later, I told my friend how weird it felt to really not have anything to worry about. I feel like my life is at such a good point, with nothing going exceedingly badly or exceptionally well, that this static balance just felt so good and relaxing.

Unfortunately, with many people, if you aren’t armed with a barrage of issues, you are going to spend your evening listening to theirs. It’s become so fashionable to have multiple problems in your life (many of which are serious #firstworldproblems) that taking that topic off the table leaves quite a glaring gap in the conversation. We definitely enjoy talking about the negative much more than the positive but perhaps we need to switch the focus entirely. What if our conversations looked outward a little more, and centered around ourselves and our made up problems a little less? I think this would lead to more gratifying and meaningful exchanges where you leave feeling upbeat and enriched rather than trying to compete over who has spent more time stuck in traffic for that week.

Grateful, But Do We Need To Post About It? was originally published in The Coffeelicious on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Comedians have long held the important job of holding a mirror up to society. Comedy at its worst can be crass, irreverent, tasteless, but it serves an important purpose — reflecting the good, the bad, and the ugly that surrounds us. It pushes us to take an uncomfortably close look at the human condition with all its follies. It also allows us to marvel at our ability to laugh at ourselves and appreciate the indomitable human spirit.

Comedian Chris Rock’s professional success is not based on him saying polite, tasteful, decent things about people on stage. The Academy invited him to entertain the audience because of his irreverence, not despite it. You know that a comedian at an awards show will crack jokes at the expense of the A-list audience with as much certainty as you know that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow. And Chris Rock was following exactly that mandate. Was his joke about Jada in poor taste? Should he have stayed miles away from making fun of her alopecia caused by an auto immune condition? Absolutely yes. Was Will Smith justified in slapping him and using violence as an outlet for his anger? Most definitely not!

Post this assault, Will Smith, went on to win the best actor Oscar and received a standing ovation from the audience. He spent over two minutes addressing millions across the globe to justify his actions and frame his toxic masculinity as the act of “defending” his family. He tried to cast himself in the archaic mold of the protector of his family’s honor. He could have used a few seconds of his acceptance speech to draw attention to alopecia and Jada’s courage with his words but he chose to dwell on cryptic messages that proclaimed him the ambassador of love instead! Has there ever been a situation at the Oscars filled with more irony and hypocrisy?

Isn’t the very foundation of movie-making deeply entrenched in the freedom of speech and artistic expression? Why is it ok for Will Smith to deck someone if their expression does not please his sensibility? Why is it ok for him to enjoy the privileges of the spotlight in the entertainment industry and then lose his temper when that spotlight brings some unwanted heat? The saddest part of the whole ordeal was the new lease of life that he gave to the angry black man stereotype while overshadowing the victories of so many other marginalized nominees that deserved to be celebrated without this dramatic distraction. Meanwhile, kudos to Chris Rock for mustering all his grace and carrying on with the show as was intended instead of using the special platform of the Oscars to wallow in his drama like some others chose to last night.

Last night, comedy showed us clearly just how self-absorbed and narcissistic we have become as a society. A comedian used someone’s disease (perhaps unknowingly) to garner a laugh and a legendary actor who is a role model to a legion of young, black males chose to use a moment’s unpleasantness as an excuse to become violent and framed the entire evening in a negative context.

Next time, hopefully, Mr. Smith will use his many artistic talents and his wide reach to convey his message at the right place, at the right time, in the right way instead of channeling his anger through a slap on live television.

Smith, Rock, and the problematic slap was originally published in The Coffeelicious on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.